Africa inches toward local production of vaccines and more

Four years ago, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention set the continent a goal of having 60% of its vaccines manufactured locally. This spoke to a broader desire for local production in reaction to the lack of access to COVID-19 vaccines the continent experienced during the pandemic. At this year’s World Health Summit, African health leaders reiterated their commitment to the goal of local manufacturing — and not just for vaccines, but also therapeutics and diagnostics — and took stock of the progress they have made. “The political will is not waning, it is increasing,” Africa CDC’s Shanelle Hall, said during a WHS panel. What experts described is a continuum of components, from infrastructure to regulation, that is steadily coming into place. Key gaps remain, though, and the entire process is shadowed by the question of whether countries will actually buy whatever the continent’s manufacturers ultimately produce. Though infrastructure remains a challenge, the mechanisms for filling those gaps are emerging, Martin Seychell, deputy director-general at the European Commission Directorate-General for International Partnerships, explained during the panel. That includes the Human Development Accelerator, which matches up to €750 million from the European Investment Bank with money from the Gates Foundation to channel into infrastructure projects in Africa and other parts of the global south. And in June last year, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance introduced the $1.2 billion African Vaccine Manufacturing Accelerator, or AVMA, which can help manufacturers offset the initial costs of development and production. Alongside these funding commitments, which they expect to spur future progress, experts highlighted the advancement of regulatory capacity on the continent. “This is the strand of work that has advanced the fastest,” Seychell said. That includes operationalizing the African Medicines Agency, an African Union initiative to help countries regulate production and harmonize pharmaceutical standards across the continent. There are still steps in the continuum that need to be shored up, though, starting at the beginning with the raw components required for basic research and development and, eventually, for large-scale manufacturing. “It just takes us too long to generate or find that candidate that could make it down the drug pipeline or make it down the vaccine pipeline,” Isabella Oyier, the head of the biosciences department at KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Program, told Devex. “That’s going to slow down any form of manufacturing we’re even thinking about. We simply can’t get any of the reagents, for instance, because they’re manufactured externally.” And the process of building infrastructure and capacity would be aided by more technology transfers. This is the process in which the patent holder shares skills and processes to develop commodities, therapeutics or pharmaceuticals. This kind of collaboration would allow African manufacturers to leapfrog some of the initial trial and error that comes with introducing new products. By 2040, “we have a mandated call for 60% of vaccines to come from African manufacturers,” Farrah Losper, the chief commercial officer at Biovac, a South Africa-based biotechnology company, said during a WHS panel. “To achieve that kind of scale in that kind of time, we need technology transfers.” As recently as last year, the Access to Medicines Index concluded that technology transfers remain concentrated in a few upper-middle-income markets. Though he was supportive of tech transfers, Rajinder Suri, the CEO of the Developing Countries Vaccine Manufacturers Network International, cautioned that the conditions are often not in place to make the process worthwhile. “Unless the market is available, what is the point of doing the tech transfer?” he asked. “There needs to be clear market orientation and expectation.” Indeed, the question of whether there will be a market for any products manufactured in Africa continues to hang over the broader push for local production. While initiatives such as AVMA will help offset costs so that companies can set competitive prices initially, there are not infinite resources to bolster local production. Companies will need committed buyers so that they can achieve economies of scale. Hall said this has been a particular focus of Africa CDC. Recognizing a “need for coordination,” the agency is working with manufacturers to make sure markets are not oversaturated, while also “unlocking and leveraging the buying power of governments.” With the ultimate goal still more than a decade away, there was a sense at WHS that Africa is on track. “The African continent has refused to let this go, rightly,” Seychell said. “That’s very important.”